The Fourth Seal: A Pale Horse

6: 7-8

DIG: What was the name of the
rider on the pale horse and
who was following him? What progression is there from the first rider
to the fourth? Will the world get better and
better? Why or why not? What means of destruction will be used? What do they
represent?

REFLECT: Is the Devil still alive and
well where you live? Has he been kicked out of your community? Do you struggle
with suffering in the world? Who do you think is the cause of that suffering,
God or Satan? Why?

Three horses had galloped into John’s vision and, bearing their riders of
judgment, had ridden toward the earth. Again, the Lamb moved to open the fourth
seal holding the pages of the LORD's great scroll in place. As before,
the fourth
cherub stepped forward to command the last rider, “Come!” And another part of
the scroll was thrown back to reveal a fourth horse and rider. What did
John see
in that flashing moment? As a first hand observer, he wrote: I looked, and there
before me was a pale horse! The Greek word for pale is chloros, or
yellowish-green. The word by itself can mean vegetation, but it can also mean
pale grey, or the ashen color of death. As a result, the fourth horse
will be the color
of a corpse.

At that moment John’s eyes were confronted with a terrifying sight. The pale
horses’ rider and his inseparable companion following close behind him are
personified as Death and Hades, the place of the dead. Hades will become the
gravedigger, burying the remains of Death’s victims.204 The Greek word
Hades is
a transliteration of the English word hell. The word means the unseen, and is
meant to denote the invisible world of shadows. This was the technical Greek
religious term used to designate the world of those who had died. The
Septuagint, or the Greek translation of the TaNaKh, uses this word to
translate the Hebrew word Sh'ol, which generally has the same meaning. The
concept of Sh'ol in the Bible is divided into two parts, one called paradise
(Luke 16:22), for the righteous dead, and the other part for the wicked dead
(Luke 16:23). So here, Death and Sh'ol follow in the wake of famine, and
Sh'olis ready to receive the dead of the Tribulation.205

Of the dozens of artistic interpretations of the four horsemen, the most graphic
might be the nightmare vision of a Japanese artist, Fujita, who painted the
fourth horseman as a full skeleton grinning fiendishly, riding on the full
skeleton of a horse across a battlefield strewn with skeletons. The entire
charnel scene is framed in a chlorine green cloud of death. With Hiroshima being
etched into the Japanese psyche, who could better portray the pale horse?206

Although Death will ride unbridled during the Great Tribulation, ADONAIwill allow
it for His ultimate purposes. It is not God’s desire that any should die
(Second
Peter 3:9b), but mankind refused His plan and the wages of sin is death (Romans
6:23). So a fourth of the earth will die so that the rest may see what rebellion
brings and have the opportunity to repent. Satan will think he is gaining the
upper hand, but ELOHIM will merely use his evil for good. We must always remember
that it is Christ, who holds the keys of death and
Hades (1:18).Yeshua once put
it like this: If those days had not been cut short, no
one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened
(Matthew 24:22). This
rider will not find the Church. The righteous of the TaNaKh and B'rit
Chadashah believers will already be safe in heaven with ADONAI. No,
Death will be
hunting down more than one billion unbelievers who are destined to spend
eternity in Sh'ol. What a harvest.

This obviously contradicts those who teach the world will get better and better.
Will the religious people of the earth take dominion over cities, states and
nations? Has the devil been kicked out of your neighborhood? Or is he still
prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (First Peter
5:8)? This is what the Bible teaches about the direction the world is going.
Death and Hades were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword.
It is staggering to think that one-fourth of the world’s population will be
destroyed in a matter of days. That means one billion people will be killed. To
put it in perspective, the number of people who will die every two days will
equal the numbers who were killed instantly at Hiroshima.207

During the Great Tribulation, the world will have a counterfeit peace, then war,
then economic collapse and famine. Things will grow progressively worse. Notice
the progression. The rider on the white horse will only be partially armed.
He
will have a bow, but no arrows. The rider on the red horse will carry a single
sword. The rider on the black horse will have two means of destruction –
economic collapse and famine.208 But the rider on the pale horse
will have
four specific ways in which to kill.

First, the sword signifies warfare. As I have stated before,
ADONAIhas an
eternal purpose behind all the bloodshed. No one is more grieved at the killing
than Jesus. It breaks His heart to see people, created in His own image, die.
But as William Barclay, the famous Scottish professor at Glasgow University,
warned, “At the back of it all there is the permanent truth that no man and no
nation can escape the consequences of their sin.”209

Secondly, famine signifies starvation.Death on a massive scale is the
inevitable consequence of widespread war and famine. As in America during the
Great Depression, in Europe after the Second World War, and today in many third
world nations, there are starving people waiting in food lines. But they will
not find enough food to live on and many millions will starve to death.

Thirdly, plague signifies disease. Throughout human history, disease has killed
people on a far more massive scale than war. More Union and Confederate soldiers
died from disease during the Civil War than were killed in battle. An estimated
30 million people died during the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. This
was three times as many as the estimated 8.5 million soldiers who died in battle
during World War I. In addition, several million more died at the same time in
an outbreak of typhus in Russia, Poland and Romania.210 There will not be enough
antibiotics to go around and stop it.

And lastly, by the wild beasts of the earth.
This will be a strong message to
the “politically correct” who worship Mother Nature and value the life of
animals over unborn babies. ADONAI will show the world that it’s wrong to
worship Mother Nature. Hungry wild beasts will turn on the unbelievers of the
world and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) won’t be able to help them!211

This prophecy is based on the four dreadful judgments found in the
TaNaKh.
The prophet Ezekiel heard God say: How much worse will it be when I send against
Jerusalem the sword, famine, plague and wild beasts to kill its men. But even those promises of horrors had a
glimmer of hope. ADONAI assured Ezekiel that
there will be some survivors – sons
and daughters will be brought out of it. That is the point. He told Ezekiel that
He would be consoled whenHe saw their conduct and their actions (which were so
different than before) for Ezekiel would then knowthat God had
done nothing
without cause (Ezekiel 14:21-23).

As a result, that is who we see next: survivors - spiritual survivors.
They will
be the martyred soulsunder the alter in heaven (6:9-11), those saved out of a
worldwide revival (7:1-8), and a great multitude standing before the throne in
front of the Lamb (7:9-17). What a harvest!